News

Santa Clara: Caltrain kills one man, injures another

By Eric Kurhi and Erin Ivie

Staff writers

Posted:
01/21/2014 05:52:54 AM PST

Updated:
01/21/2014 08:34:10 AM PST

One person was killed and another hospitalized after they were hit by a train Monday evening Jan. 20, 2014, at the Santa Clara Caltrain station in Santa Clara, Calif.
The two victims were apparently on the tracks at the station adjacent to Santa Clara University when they were hit by northbound train No. 375 around 5:30 p.m. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

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One person was killed and another hospitalized after they were hit by a train Monday evening Jan. 20, 2014, at the Santa Clara Caltrain station in Santa Clara, Calif.
The two victims were apparently on the tracks at the station adjacent to Santa Clara University when they were hit by northbound train No. 375 around 5:30 p.m. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

SANTA CLARA -- One man was killed and another rushed into surgery Monday night after they were hit by a fast-moving train at the Santa Clara Caltrain station, transit officials said.

The two victims were apparently on the tracks at the station adjacent to Santa Clara University when they were hit by northbound train No. 375 around 5:30 p.m., Caltrain spokeswoman Jayme Ackemann said. One of the men was pronounced dead at the scene; the other was taken to a hospital with serious injuries but is expected to survive.

Seventy people were on the train at the time of the incident, which officials deemed a light ridership because of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. Ackemann said the train was an express commuter that does not stop at the Santa Clara station and was traveling between 50 and 70 mph.

About 200 feet of the station platform was cordoned off Monday evening as investigators examined the track directly in front of it. Ackemann said the pair had been standing on the platform before they were hit, although no train was due at that time.

Officials do not yet know what led the two men onto the tracks, and investigators hope to glean information about what happened from the man who survived.

"We need to understand what went on between the two victims, whether something else was going on," said Ackemann, who added that it was "incredibly unusual" for a train to hit two people at once.

Southbound trains began stopping at the Santa Clara station about 8 p.m., after two hours of trains passing slowly through the station.

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Commuter Dave Atchley, who rides Caltrain to the South Bay from Livermore, was waiting for a different train when the one that hit the pedestrians went by.

"It was making an unusual sound," he said. "The train has a distinctive sound when it goes by, but there was something different about it."

He said emergency responders arrived almost immediately.

"Then there were a lot of sirens; I thought it was a car crash," Atchley said. "Then (police) came and told me I had to move to the other side of the platform."

Santa Clara Valley Transit Authority provided a shuttle between the Santa Clara, Lawrence and Sunnyvale stations, and honored Caltrain tickets for commuters diverted off their routes.

Passengers were required to board trains from the northbound platform at the Lawrence station. Ackemann said Amtrak, Altamont Corridor Express and Capitol Corridor trains were also affected.

The incident is the first Caltrain fatality of the year, Ackemann said. The last fatality was on Oct. 14 in Menlo Park. In all, 13 people were killed on Caltrain tracks in 2013; seven of those deaths have been ruled suicides, and one person was found to be on the tracks accidentally. The other five deaths remain under investigation.